When we picked the Michelin-starred Main Tower restaurant in Frankfurt to celebrate our anniversary, we expected an over-the-top dinner, literally and figuratively. Main Tower delivered towering city views and tastes that bested La Degustation, the Michelin-starred Prague restaurant we dined at a week earlier. We even found one dinner “ingredient” with all its uniqueness a bit over the top for us.
Main Tower
The restaurant is located on the 53rd floor, 187 meters above street level in the Main Tower, a 56-story, 200-meter skyscraper in the Innenstadt district of Frankfurt, Germany. Now you know where the name comes from. In turn, the building is named after the nearby Main River.
With its antenna spire, the building is 240 meters (almost 800 feet) high and has two viewing platforms. As you can imagine, there’s a line of tourists eager to take Empire State Building-like shots for their TikTok or Insta.
As Main Tower restaurant guests, we skipped the line and beat the crowd to enjoy views before our dinner. The glass-walled restaurant provides pretty much the same views as observation platforms but with more comfort on a windy, rainy day we had during our visit. The modern open space design and tilted forward windows make you feel like you floating over the city, especially if you rest your forehead against the glass (like in an iconic scene from Titanic movie).
The Chef
Martin Weghofer, the 25-year-old from Rotenburg, has transformed the Main Tower restaurant into one of Europe’s highest gourmet temples in a mere three years.
When Weghofer entered the restaurant in 2020 to take up his new job as head chef, he was surprised by two things. Like his guests, he was inspired by the phenomenal view. As a chef, he was surprised by a small kitchen size. What delicacies he and his young team of four conjure up on their plates in such a small space is all the more astonishing.
Finding photos of the Maintower restaurant’s visually appealing dishes on popular social sites might be challenging. Martin prefers his creations to speak for themselves: “‘It was surprisingly good’ is the best compliment for me,” he says. “I think it’s cool when someone comes here without any expectations and is then thrilled.”
Main Tower Restaurant Dinner Menu
There’s no hand-wrangling needed over the menu. The only decision you need to make is a five or seven-course dinner. Unless you go with a wine pairing for each dish the sommelier selected, browsing the comprehensive Main Tower wine list might take some time.
We opted for a seven-course because we wanted to try everything. Who knows when we will be in Frankfurt next time?!
There were a few surprises that came along with the menu. Unlike in American high-end restaurants, where you might get a little bite of something while you wait for your first course, at Main Tower, we had three small appetizers to excite our tastebuds before the main menu.
Bonus Appetizers
We started with Sardine Tartelet, which woke up culinary Sherlocks within us. Some things were apparent, like black caviar and aioli that reminded us of homemade mayonnaise. Tartelet itself was something else. At first, we thought it was made from fish skin, but then we concluded it was made from molded and dried salmon roe. We could be wrong, but we still liked the idea.
Irish Mor Oyster, the second small bite, can be best described as a very sophisticated oyster shooter. The oyster was cut into pieces and served with bits of grapefruit, yogurt-based sauce with umame flavors, and drips of basil oil.
The last tastebuds wake-up call came with Ikejime Hamachi with Radish and aged Kagawa soy sauce. While delicious Hamachi was the star of this tiny dish, The green coolie that came along was just as exciting with a concoction of parsley, dill, wasabi, plum, and delicate soy sauce flavors.
Seven-Course
Our main course menu started with Hand Fished Sea Bream – a tasty, visually appealing, innovative take on a rice-less sushi roll. The cucumber sauce’s delicate astringency balanced the fish’s richness and brought forward some light sweetness.
It was followed by the best Duck Liver we ever tasted, and we get it almost every time we see it on the menu. It is often served with sauces that overshadow duck liver’s delicate flavors with its overly sweet profile. Weghofer’s Foie Gras success was in the chef’s skillful ability to juggle all five tastes and let liver (umami) shine by fine-tuning it with salt, Nashi (floral sweetness), Pistachio (delicate bitterness), Ponsu (soft sourness).
Fjord Salmon was the third dish in a row with a green background and Asian flare, giving away Weghofer’s artistic style. He successfully fused the Thai flavors of the deconstructed green papaya salad with mild flavors of wild Atlantic salmon. Each stayed in its lane yet complimented each other.
The palette and spirit of the Red Carabinero with cashew, cabbage, and popular Thai mango variety were very homogeneous with the previous dish. While the ingredients were different, the third and fourth courses fused together in minds like Siamese twins.
We started connecting the dots of Chef’s cooking style with the fifth dish – Halibut Kyabetsu—another example of a familiar ingredient cooked to perfection and complemented by octopus and Japanese cabbage.
Living in the Pacific Northwest of the United States, we eat freshly caught halibut regularly because it’s universally available. So it was fun that we had to travel half the world to taste our local fish prepared by a German chef.
Obviously, it wasn’t just about the halibut itself but instead unlocking the flavors with the help of other ingredients on the plate, like octopus, lemongrass foam, ginger, and peanuts.
Txogitxu beef was our last course before dessert. This beef comes from the Basque country in Spain, and many professional chefs and connoisseurs consider it the best in the world.
So we looked forward to tasting it for the first time. As we took a first bite, it took us back in time to Italy when we tasted Bisteca Florentina for the first time, and ever since, we have used it as a benchmark for beef.
Surprisingly, we found a lot of similarities. The Txolitxu looked raw but tasted fully cooked. It didn’t need much spices besides salt because it’s so flavorful. And we agree that it qualifies as one of the best in the world based on our experience.
Desserts
For dessert, our seventh course, we had fireworks of tropical flavors on our palates after tasting White Chocolate Namelaka. The acidity from pineapple and physalis was a secret weapon that helped to balance the richness and sweetness of the Namelaka.
We got two more desserts just as we thought the dinner was over.
First, we got Coconut-Rhubarb Mara de Bois with Verbena. It was two or rather three in one: mousse, sorbet, and a palate refresher. Our palates were swinging between sweet coconut and refreshing strawberry flavors. The contrast helped to turbocharge strawberry flavors, and we appreciated how skillfully the chef used sweet components to elevate the acidic one.
For the last, we had one of the most exciting Profiteroles that were sweet and lemony, with a hint of salty, coffee bitterness, and umami flavors at the same time.
Unexpectedly delicious!
Wine Pairing
Since we celebrated our wedding anniversary, we knew there would be bubbles and picked Bollinger Special Cuvée Champagne. Besides, the menu calls for medium to full-bodied refreshing white wine or sparkling.
Apple forward Bollinger style with flinty minerality, doughy and almost off-dry character paired excellently even with rich Txogitxu beef.
Final Thoughts
While we were ready for a roll-a-coaster ride for our tastebuds, one dinner “ingredient” took us by surprise – time. We knew the tasting menu meant longer than usual dinner. Still, we hardly anticipated being at Main Tower for over five hours. We started at 6 PM and finished after 11 PM.
On the way out, we asked the staff if dinner was typically this long and learned that it does take five hours to get through seven courses.
As we were writing our review, we couldn’t find dinner timing information on the Main Tower website or the confirmation email.
We only wish we knew it and were psychologically ready because we were frustrated at times with long transitions between courses. And the fact that we were flying back home the next day was also weighing on our minds.
In retrospect, it makes sense because the chef offers a long-forgotten feast experience that gives time to appreciate each dish and meditate over flavors, which we love to do. Moreover, it allows guests to talk and listen at the leisurely pace of the pre-digital age.
It’s probably less stressful for staff too because they don’t have the pressure of “turning the tables” from management to serve more customers. Everyone wins. As guests, we get more attention from staff dedicated to one customer for the entire evening. It’s a beautiful concept but not entirely new.
At the height of ancient Greek civilization, feasts organized by nobbles would last many hours and sometimes days. Kudos to Martin Weghofer for reviving this tradition in a way. However, we suspect that the small kitchen size at the restaurant limits the number of staff and working space, thus slowing down the process. Nevertheless, the chef turned it to his advantage and built a restaurant concept around it. Michelin Star points out that he might be onto something.
Finally, while it’s a high-end restaurant, the entirety of the experience, including location, service, and 7-course (technically 12) dinner, is a value most upscale American and European Michelin-star restaurants can hardly beat.
We wrote this review three months after we dined at Main Tower. And we still thought of the whole experience as a FOOD OPERA with lots of intermissions, allowing us to focus on incredible flavors and share our memories on the last evening of the trip.
Please like and share our article so more people can learn from our experience and know what to expect when dining at a Michelin Star restaurant.
We also would like to hear your restaurant stories in the comments below if you dined at Main Tower or other upscale restaurants.
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